Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Lena Rubel's Mourning
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It was a time when Regina was rigorously training her. Regina asked Lena, who was utterly exhausted and sprawled out.
—Is there no one on earth you want to see?
At the sudden question, Lena pondered and mumbled.
“None.”
—Putting aside your father, what about your mother?
“……I’m not sure.”
As Lena trailed off, Regina tilted her head. It was a gesture meaning explain. It wasn’t a pleasant story, but knowing Regina’s stubbornness, Lena had no choice but to speak.
“My mom was there at the time.”
—When she sold you?
“Yeah.”
—The couple conspired together?
“No, that’s not it.”
Lena frowned at Regina’s insensitive phrasing and denied it. Then, hesitating, she added.
“Mom didn’t know. She just……”
—Just?
“Pretended not to notice when I was being dragged away.”
Lena said that and quickly looked up at the sky. Her eyes had started to well up the moment she brought up her mother. She regretted bringing it up. Lena inwardly blamed Regina. Then she cautiously revisited the doubt that filled a corner of her heart. Mom had been outside the study then. That’s why, even terrified as she was dragged away, she clung to a sliver of hope. Mom will be there when the door opens, she’ll protect me, she’ll stop Father. But contrary to her expectations, when she emerged with that man, the corridor was empty. Nothing but pitch darkness, no sign of the mother who had promised to wait. Even when panicked Lena called out in sobs, it was the same. The wide, long corridor held not even a shadow, and the man taking her away covered her mouth, thinking she was crying like a lost goat.
“So I’m not sure.”
Lena said that and barely swallowed the tears that had risen unbidden. At first, she had held out hope. She imagined the possibility that Mom was completely unaware of what happened in the study, or that some urgent errand had made her leave early. But Lena soon admitted it. The chances were slim. Her funeral had been held just three days later. If Mom had looked for her afterward, pressed Father to return her daughter, it would have been impossible.
“She’s always been like that.”
—What?
“Mom never went against Father.”
Lena mumbled in a voice laced with resignation. Mom had never once opposed Father’s will. Mom was kind but frail, obedient to the point of powerlessness. Imagining her standing up to Father was difficult.
—Your father must truly be an impressive figure.
After hearing the story, Regina sighed in disbelief.
—Unless he tamed her thoroughly, would a mother abandon her child?
“Are you saying Father’s bad?”
—I have no intent to judge. Nor to defend your mother.
Regina said that and brushed Lena’s reddened eyes with her fingertips. It only made Lena feel sadder for no reason, and Regina whispered to her.
—Just don’t let your heart lose its way.
“……I don’t know how to think of Mom.”
She felt nothing for Father anymore. No expectations, no lingering attachments, no love—all long discarded. But Mom? Mom hadn’t protected her. She knew Lena was being dragged away somewhere and still pretended not to see. Lena found it maddeningly cruel, yet understandable in a way that tormented her. She must have been scared. Speaking up wouldn’t have helped anyway. The man who sold his daughter wouldn’t spare his wife. So Mom’s flight was comprehensible. But understanding didn’t mean forgiving. If anything, the inability to blindly resent her made it worse.
“What should I do?”
Lena mumbled in a feeble voice. Regina answered, pitying the child desperately seeking an answer.
—You don’t have to forgive her.
Then she added.
—But pity her. She, too, is one who was taken.
***
Lena recalled Regina’s words as she gazed at her mother, who still avoided her eyes. Her mother seemed eager to hide from her husband and daughter’s gazes. Seeing that resolved the last lingering question. Any faint hope was now dispelled. That frail woman had known what her husband did yet closed her eyes to it. Too weak to resist, she chose compliance, and now fretted that her husband might discover her cowardice upon the daughter’s return. A woman for whom being abandoned by her husband was the greatest fear in the world. That was the true face of the mother she loved. Witnessing it firsthand stirred pity without effort.
“I know. It was all Father’s doing on his own.”
So Lena turned away from her pitiful mother and addressed the marquis.
“You didn’t call me here just to talk about that today, did you?”
As Lena asked calmly, the marquis rested his chin on his clasped hands for a moment. He gauged the mood, then said to his wife.
“Would you please leave us?”
A tearful mother-daughter reunion seemed impossible. Judging thus, the marquis dismissed his wife mid-feast. It wasn’t treatment befitting a noble lady, but the marchioness nodded without complaint. The marquis sent out the servants as well, and Lena silently watched the former family members scramble away. Soon, only father and daughter remained in the dining hall. Alone now, the marquis spoke weakly.
“I had some hopes when you accepted the invitation.”
At his deliberately petulant tone, Lena playfully responded in kind.
“Was I too cold?”
“I thought you’d want to see your mother.”
“It sounds like you wanted to hold her hostage.”
The joking retort carried a sting. The marquis smiled bitterly at Lena, who yielded not an inch.
“Then I chose the wrong hostage.”
Even as he parried calmly, the marquis was inwardly puzzled. Lena’s coldness toward her mother, his wife’s fear of her daughter. He couldn’t grasp the rift that had formed between them unbeknownst to him. Had they even had the chance? If there was some reason, it stemmed from this house too—how could he not know?
“You look baffled.”
Lena said as she watched the quietly pondering marquis. Caught off guard, he looked at her, and Lena teasingly added.
“It’s hard for those on top to understand those below. Everyone’s desperate to win favor, showing only their best sides.”
The words seemed to mock the marchioness at first. But the marquis soon realized they targeted him. He had sent Lena a fawning invitation, rushed the timing, paraded his wife to welcome her. As she said, the underling straining to impress the superior. Her mockery cut deep, and his position felt absurd anew, but he didn’t yield.
“True, you’re right. Humans are inherently servile.”
Muttering, the marquis suddenly rose. He walked to the wall and took down an ornamental sword.
“It’d be nice to live with pride and dignity. But the world’s unforgiving—best to bend and bow shrewdly to survive.”
Drawing the sword, he approached Lena. She watched without flinching, and he asked his fearless daughter.
“You haven’t touched the food at all.”
“Afraid it might be poisoned again.”
“Good, better that way.”
The marquis smiled faintly at her, then swung the sword with all his might. With a crash, the food and dishes before Lena spilled onto the floor. Red sauce splattered like blood on her white blouse. After sweeping the table clean, he raised the sword again. Thwang! Like an arrow hitting a target, it embedded in the table, quivering. The marquis stepped back after stabbing the sword into the table.
Lena, who had watched, asked.
“What does this mean?”
“Your turn now.”
“My turn?”
“I admit it. You’re strong, and I can’t touch you. My only path left is to beg your forgiveness.”
His confession was neither arrogant nor groveling—just calmly stating the facts.
“Do as you wish. So honor your promise to give me a chance.”
What emerged from the marquis’s lips was utter surrender. Yielding the sword was the best submission a kneeler could offer. He bowed to his daughter without shame. His eyes still held vivid images of Lena whipping wraiths and dancing with the emperor in dazzling finery. One so great deserved his bow. He was proud she was his blood. No longer wishing to oppose such a daughter, he spoke without delay.
“I acknowledge you as a daughter of House Rubel. Publicly and officially.”
So forgive me. He didn’t add it. He saw the smile spreading on Lena’s lips. At his plea, Lena smiled ambiguously—joyful yet regretful—and said.
“I’m evidence of your treason. What will you do about that?”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Handle it?”
“I’ll use every means to bring you back without issue.”
He promised firmly, scanning Lena’s face again. But her expression remained inscrutable. Satisfied or mocking, her ambiguous eyes stared at her father. Then came her sigh.
“You really don’t get what I said. ‘Without issue.’”
Lena clicked her tongue in lament, startling the marquis feignedly. He couldn’t even tell what she objected to. Even her explanation didn’t help.
“If you mean fabricating a story to silence people, you’re wrong, Father. That’s not what I want.”
Wrong? Not what she wants? Lena had demanded public acknowledgment. That was her condition for forgiveness. So the marquis resolved to bring Lena Rubel into the house, bearing all burdens and risks, fabricating plausibility to right the wrong. Yet her response stayed icy, leaving him perplexed by her constant misalignment. Meanwhile, Lena pitied her father. She acknowledged his substantial concessions, his reasonable proposals. Not just now, but before too. He had tempted the suddenly appeared Lena with a new life. A fine attempt. Had she desired an ordinary future, she might have accepted. But Lena Rubel’s end was set. Her wishes differed from those who would keep living.
“I don’t want to be your daughter, Father. Nor belong to House Rubel. As I’ve said, I just want me.”
Comfortable living meant nothing to one as good as dead. Promises of good positions were futile for one soon departing. What they desired fundamentally differed from the living. Their wish was mere existence, remembrance. Since they could no longer live, sharing thus. Restoring negated, distorted lives. Full acknowledgment before eternal erasure. Perhaps a funeral. True mourning unlike your hasty burial. Lena Rubel’s final selfishness, like a candle on the verge of extinguishing.
“I want to exist. Not as something else, but wholly myself. Completely, to the moment you discarded me into the grave.”
Because too much has already been erased. Because those erased pile full beneath graves. Nonexistence isn’t forgetting. Erased, forgotten names remain there.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Lena asked the marquis, hiding her reasons. He looked utterly uncomprehending, as expected. She could read his thoughts plainly. But she didn’t want to reveal her plight, give him breathing room. You stole my future. I can’t open my heart even to those I love. Sparing my life is concession enough—this trial is fair.
“You look like you don’t understand.”
Lena tempered her sharp feelings and spoke mildly. The silently listening marquis replied in a subdued voice.
“So in the end, you won’t be satisfied until you burn the house down.”
“I knew you’d take it that way.”
Just as predicted. Lena, hating her father who killed his daughter yet desperately clung to life, broached gently.
“I know. You’ve lived the opposite life. Always desperate because of it.”
As Lena smiled faintly, the marquis’s face noticeably hardened. Gazing at the meaningfully speaking Lena, he felt an urge to throttle her, like with Enji. But unlike Enji, Lena showed no fear. No desperate confusion.
“You’d rather hide it forever than reclaim it, right?”
She merely feigned ignorance, stabbing her father’s sorest spot.
“Before becoming Kardo Rubel, your real name.”